Two Friends; One Acceptance and One Rejection

[ucbalumnus]

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@zephyr15

Randomness – here’s the question, let’s say that a school admitted 100 students (and rejected 300) on Wednesday. If you took the same applications, and gave them to a different committee, how many of the 100 would be admitted – my guess would be that if the school had a good process you’d see about 85-90 of the same names, but if your answer is anything less than 100 (which would be truly extraordinary) there is some randomness in the system. The last few acceptance/rejections are so incredibly close that one couldn’t (and wouldn’t be expected to) reproduce the same acceptance pool.

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<p>While what you state is likely correct for the holistic admissions schools (or perhaps even fewer than 85 of the same names would be admitted), the schools which admit by formula should produce identical results if the rerun the process on the same applicants.</p>

<p>It is likely that most college students attend schools which admit by formula (e.g. moderately and less selective state universities), or which are open admission (e.g. community colleges).</p>